Charlie's tired of sound bites and the politics of fear and exclusion, regardless of party. Sit, stay, and join him for some rational discourse.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Financial Crisis: Michael Lewis & 'The Big Short'

If you've listened to Financial Crisis 101, below, then you know the vocabulary: subprime mortgages, derivatives, CDOs, and CDSs (and hopefully had a good time learning it). Now... hear how some clever analysts recognized the problems with subprime mortgages/ CDOs and talked the big investment houses into creating CDSs in order to bet against them. Some of these guys even tried to warn the SEC that there was a big storm a'comin'.

Michael Lewis talks about this in his new book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" which he discusses on KQED's 'Forum' radio program. It's definitely worth a listen!